Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that The Ref had a verified Twitter account, that is until he called Stephen Slater a ‘bag nazi’ and a ‘super slider earlier today. I apologize for not paying attention, Denis, because you’re first rate on Twitter; in the past week he hit the nail on the head re Whoopi Goldberg, Eat Pray Love and Snooki.
Yesterday, Leary put it to Alex Rodriguez nicely, using his own brand of scientific analysis to compare A-Rod to the past stars in a series of tweets dubbed ‘If the Old Stars Had Steroids’:
If you’re interested in that old school ‘No Cure For Cancer’ brand of Leary, follow him on Twitter. Also, Rescue Me is starting to pick up this season too if you ask me.
He could jump another few percentage points if the Collins original became his walk-up music.
Scutaro has been more than tolerable on the whole (.285 BA, leads the team in at-bats, second in hits) and on a tear recently (.485 BA in his last ten games). If you don’t agree, then you don’t know the Red Sox unremarkable shortstop history of recent times.
H/T to Ryan Hudson (Editor, SB Nation) for finding this deep link on the Red Sox website that lists their walk-up music. He especially likes Dice-K taking the mound to Fabolous. Personally, I don’t think it’s gets any better than Jeremy Hermida coming out to N2Deep’s “Back to the Hotel.”
Four different tracks. Artists and titles unknown.
They actually let him get away with that.
Is this something that’s universally listed on every team’s website? It should be. I did some not-great research, and could only find a listing of the 2008 Detroit Tigers entrance music. However, a coworker of mine who was at the Yankee game last night at least confirms that a certain captain comes out to this song…
I’m not going to lie. I was indeed looking for the truly sensationalized to post this April Fools Day. What I ended up finding – on my old stand-by for the startling, ebay – is equal parts nostalgic and…heartless?
OK. Thurman Munson died in a plane crash in 1979, at age 32 as the captain of the Yankees. He was baseball’s Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I’m not so much sickened that someone’s trying to make a buck off this (maybe because of my coarse hatred of the Yankees), but this is pretty atrocious.
True geek alert #199: If you type Mark McGwire into your Google search, this is what shows up…
I think we’re going to be able to add ‘Mark McGwire and crying’ real soon.
At the moment, when you type Mark Mcgwire cr…Creatine is prompted before crying; I searched for Mark Mcgwire on Google, ask me anything.
The payoff to all this nonsense…hilarity.
I bet you thought that was going to be all legitimate, what with the AP chyron in there, right? Wrong again. To make up for it with something informative on the matter, check out SportsRadioInterviews.com’s post of Dave Henderson’s, former Mcgwire teammate with the A’s, interview today with ESPN 101 in St Louis:
At the time of me scribing this piece of inconsequence, incarcerated Boston Red Sox fan Randy Aaron Baker is preparing for his temporary release from Van Buren County Jail so that he can attend today Sox game against the Royals in Kansas City.
Randy Aaron Barker is serving a 10-day jail sentence for interference with official acts and violation of a protective order. He is also a big fan of the Boston Red Sox.
According to the Ottumwa Courier story, Barker’s attorney, Margaret E. King, Barker petitioned the court to allow him to attend the Red Sox game in Kansas City with his father and brother. They have had long-term plans to attend, King told Magistrate Judge Benny Waggoner.
Baker is set to return late tonight or tomorrow to the clink – whenever, right? What’s an “official act” anyway?
There’s a word in the quote that seems both appropriate, yet glaringly absurd. Petition. As in, some judge spent the time to hear a petition for a short time criminal to go to a baseball game – and a meaningless one at that. The lawyering time would have been better spent coming up with some sort of fining scale to be levied against people who buy tickets to Royals games in September.
Just goes to show you, for every Midwest magistrate being run roughshod by unbridled serial killers acting out of boredom, there’s lawmen who have too much time on their hands.
Baseball Fan Released From Jail To See Game (KCCI.com)
Leading up to this past weekend’s inception of the 2009-10 NFL season, I polled the sports blogosphere on What’s the Greatest Sports Day of the Year. Thought we’d get a top-10 out of it, but it turns out everybody sort of likes the same days with a few wild cards thrown in. (Actually, just The Indy 500 sort of puzzles me.)
Therefore, here’s my highly arbitrary Top-5 based on the sports blog intelligentsia’s feedback.
Don’t forget to vote at the bottom…
NFL Opening Sunday
Hanging out in a bar or ensconced on a couch with onion dip for 8-12 hours on a Sunday watching pro football is a truly iconic American experience. We wait all Summer for that experience, the whole time left to believe that sort of behavior is inappropriate and lethargic. Then, on a faithful Sunday in September – no matter what level of balmy Indian Summer weather we’re having – all your dreams come true, sloth. And, it’s not just one day, but the start of 5+ months of Sundays like this.
Here is Adam Best’s (Fansided.com) take on NFL opening day…
Not only is the NFL the professional sports league with the best product, it’s the sports league with the best presentation. After waiting for over half a year for the real thing, you get a taste of actual NFL regular season action on opening Thursday. That just wets your appetite for the 13 games on the Sunday slate. From tailgating to fantasy football, there isn’t a sports day that offers this much from start to finish. Christmas in September. Watching the Red Zone Channel for almost 7 hours before you switch over to NBC for the encore, and ESPN and the NFLN for the nightcap recap. From 8 AM until Midnight it’s all NFL. You can’t get non-stop action and highlights like that anywhere else.
The Kentucky Derby
I’ll take the sights at the local OTB on the day of the Kentucky Derby over any exploding fireworks spectacular. If they put an OTB there, even Mayberry would look like public squalor on Derby day. Utterly, fantastic.
But, to quote something The Cincinnati Kid Steve McQueen might have said – it’s not just the gambling, it’s also the drinking. You can muddle fruit everyday of the year, and it’ll never taste as well muddled as in a julep on Derby Day.
Also, you can wear a seersucker suit or a hat shaped like an extra large Triple Meat Italiano from Pizza Hut every day of the year, and people will always look at you with vague condescension, but at least on Derby Day they’ll have formulated an explanation as to why you’re dressed like a doofus.
The NBA Draft
I got more responses that read I know it sounds crazy, but I really enjoy the NBA Draft. Why so ashamed?
Two rounds, five minutes a pick (two minutes in the second round even), and all the wardrobe audacity that you could ask for in under three hours. I don’t think ESPN could get a more efficient display of unintentional comedy if they got Keyshawn, Kruk and Lou Holtz to tri-anchor SportsCenter live from Pamplona at the Running of the Bulls.
Opening Day
Answer: The first day when teams play each other in this sport is commonly referred to as Opening Day.
What is baseball, Alex. This would be a $200 dollar question in Jeopardy round. Under the category: Sports, amateur hour.
There’s a reason it’s Opening Day, and not Opening Sunday in the norms of society. And, the explanation might be that this is actually the greatest sports day of the year.
Hope springs eternal. Dads with their sons playing hookie from school and work, your first smells of the fresh cut infield and outfield grass, grilled ballpark franks, batting practice and ice cold beer…and then you go home that night to watch march madness…perfection.
The first or second day of the NCAA Tournament:
I used to work with a guy who took Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament off every year, and went to Vegas with his buddies for the first round of the tournament. In a world where most of us lose vacation time do to sinister company policies, he’s an inspiration.
Interchangeably known as the least productive day of the corporate year, sports fans might actually be at their best and brightest these two days. There are 13 games on NFL Opening Sunday, and due to mitigating circumstances (spreads, fantasy players, food comas) you’re bound to let the outcome of one or two slip until Sport Center, Monday morning. Also, due to occurrences like Opening Day: Kansas City at Baltimore, you’re likely to not care about the full MLB slate on April 1. 32 teams play on each of the first two days of the tournament, and you will know the fate of every single one (and you won’t need to reference a fistful of sports book tickets to conjure up this knowledge).
Hit the poll to vote for the greatest sports day out of these five, and check out some other bloggers’ takes below…
1. Super Bowl Sunday
2. Opening Day Baseball
3. Game 7 ( MLB or NBA )
4. NFL Championship Sunday NFC AFC
5. The Big Dance Day 1
6. The Big Dance Final 4
7. The Big Dance Sweet 16
8. First Saturday of NCAA Football
The best sports day of the year for me is New Year’s day. I love college football and having it to watch from 11:00 in the morning until after midnight engrooses me every single year. The first two days of the NCAA Basketball Tourney run a close second, and baseball opening day is third.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but one of my favorite days has always been the NBA All-Star game day/weekend. My birthday always happens to fall on that same weekend so I get to celebrate my bday along with my favorite sport’s all-star festivities.
I haven’t spoken to him yet, but my grandfather – a half-the-year Florida resident and man who has no less than nine sets of lawn darts in his garage – is surely offended by this.
Actually, playing catch at a public park or beach in Clearwater has been banned for a number of years (and yet, the ban on burmese pythons is still under consideration), and now, lawmakers are trying to change it back. As it stands now:
“No person or persons shall engage in rough or potentially dangerous activity such as football, baseball, softball, horseshoes, tennis, volleyball, badminton, or any other organized activity involving thrown or otherwise propelled objects such as balls, stones, arrows, javelins, shuttlecocks, Frisbees, model aircraft or roller skates on any public bathing beach or park property except in areas set aside for that purpose.”
To be fair, it would have been have unjust to only ban bow and arrow.
H/T to Popehat.com, who points out that since they passed this law, badminton-related deaths have dropped dramatically.
Before we give the Giants too much guff, I think we owe them a little deeper analysis on this. For one thing, Anchor Steam (a San Fran local sold at the park) is legit. And also, I don’t really buy this report.
First off, the beer figures have a footnote attached to them that reads: Team restructured seating categories or made retroactive changes to 2008 prices. Some of the 2008 numbers used do not match up with previously reported figures.
Anyone?
What I can tell you is that the Mets’ price figure that says you pay $5.00 for a 12 oz. is, well, a sick joke (because i’d love to get my hands on a $5 beer at a Mets game). I’ve been to Citi Field five times during the 2009 campaign, and I’ve purchased beer in every possible manner, minus the ritzy V.I.P. bar, which looks like a suite at The Palms resort and casino – I doubt this is where they are hiding the $5 special. I’d wager that Yankee stadium attendees would take similar offense to the assertion that they’re paying $6 for a 12 oz.
I’d say the average Mets beer at Citi floats you about $7. This includes the 16 oz. pounders of Bud and Bud Light, and the wide array of microbrews sold in 12 oz. cans. The 12 oz. domestics you can get up in the stands run $6. If that mumbo jumbo from above is supposed to translate to mean we’re looking at 2008 prices, then it bares noting that actually the prices at Citi Field are on average lower this year than at Shea in 2008 ($7.50 for those 12 oz. Buds). So don’t feel too bad for yourselves, Giants fans, because something is absent here with the numbers.
The Diamondbacks came in with the low number at $4.00 for their beer served in metric 14 oz. cups.
